Clint Black at the Texas BBQ Festival

Billionaire Donald Trump may be pre-campaigning for president of the United States in 2012, but former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant Clint Black probably won’t throw him a vote.

Black, who’s the headliner at the 30th annual Texas Bar-B-Q Festival in Vidor on Saturday, had a fun time on challenges during his stint on the reality show, but it took a while to get used to the lack of Southern hospitality.

The Katy native started making country tunes in the late 1980s, when Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson were changing the game in Nashville.

Since then, he has written and recorded more than 100 original songs and dabbled in the movie and television industry, in addition to being the face of a charity that not many people know about.

But he doesn’t seem to be breaking a sweat.

So this isn’t your first trip to Southeast Texas, is it?
I’ve been coming to Beaumont since way back to 1991. I played at Lamar for a couple of festivals. You can generally count on good weather when you go there.

What was it like working with reality TV’s boss, Donald Trump?
It was mixed. I really enjoyed some parts and really didn’t enjoy other parts. I was disgusted by some of the behavior I observed (most wasn’t shown).

Was it not just the regular reality show theatrics and antics?
It was just people mistreating each other. I’m not used to that — in the artist world, we don’t allow that. It was hard to be in the room with that kind of energy.

Would you venture on television again?
I did like the tasks, and that was the reason I went on the show. I thought I could get lucky and win, but I ended up raising more money for my charity by hooking up with a guy on the show.

See, reality TV does have something to offer. What charity do you support?
Rett Syndrome is a neurological disorder that afflicts mainly girls. By the age of 2 years old, the signs start to show, which are wringing of the hands and other redundant motions. They’re basically cut off from communication and can’t do anything for themselves and usually die very young. It affects about 10,000 girls a year.

What spurred you to support a charity that is pretty unknown to the mainstream public?
We lost my niece to it at 16. The stress on the family of taking care of a child with Rett is unbearable. Finding a diagnosis is one of the hardest parts. It’s a terrible situation. The International Rett Syndrome Foundation raises money for research and for awareness, and it’s helping families know what they’re dealing with.

Have you really written 100 songs? That’s a major feat.
I think I’m up to about 150 now, and I’ve recorded and released about 120 to 125 songs. They’re all my songs; I haven’t ever really written for other artists. An R&B couple covered one of my songs, “I Do,” that I wrote for my wife and me, and that was a big treat.

What is your song-writing process?
I have a few napkins loaded with ideas; notebooks and folders on my laptop with ideas — some of them are more or less complete. I’ve written songs in just about every way imaginable: on the back of a brown paper bag on an airplane or a boat to going away to a cabin and disappearing for two weeks and doing nothing but write, horseback ride and fish.